GCSU honored to host special Lincoln traveling exhibit
The exhibit titled “Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America” is part of a celebration of the 16th President’s 200th birthday. It contains reproductions of many Lincoln artifacts, including his favorite books, a woodaxe, and his famous stovepipe hat. Also featured is an award-winning video titled “The Civil War in Four Minutes”, which will play continuously throughout the exhibit’s time in Milledgeville. In addition to the artifacts that travel with the exhibit, the Governor’s Mansion plans to show articles from its own Civil War collection, such as letters by Joseph E. Brown, Georgia’s Civil War governor.
The exhibit will chronologically span Lincoln’s life from his childhood, as the son of a subsistence farmer, through his careers as a surveyor and a lawyer, and his political career and assassination.
Jim Turner, Director of the Governor’s Mansion is excited about being chosen to host such an event.
“The application process for this exhibit was extremely competitive. GCSU and the Mansion are very fortunate to have been selected out of hundreds of applications nationwide. This is a great honor for our university, and I sincerely hope that our faculty and students will come to view and study this rare and exciting look into Lincoln’s life and tragic assassination,” Turner said. “The Mansion is a good fit for the exhibit since Milledgeville was the capital of Georgia during the Civil War, the most challenging period of Lincoln’s presidency.”
Turner added that only 40 places around the country would host the exhibit, and that the exhibit will not be seen again once it closes in September 2010.
In a statement, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which has undertaken this exhibit, said that the exhibit’s time in Milledgeville would begin on Dec. 9 and remain here until Jan. 16, with the exhibit closed from Dec. 25-Jan. 1. The Lincoln Museum also stated that the exhibit would highlight his rise from the son of a poor farmer to the highest office in the land as a uniquely American story of a “self-made man.”
Dr. Robert Wilson, the chair of the History Department, encouraged students and faculty to view the exhibit.
“Lincoln was president at a pivotal point in our history. I think that next to Washington, he was one of our country’s greatest presidents,” Wilson said. “I think that if Lincoln hadn’t succeeded, we would have two different states today and neither would be as strong.”
The funding for “Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America” comes primarily from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with supplemental funding and support from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation and the History Channel. The American Library Association of Chicago and the Tribeca Film Institute of New York also contributed to the exhibit.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Oct 24 2008. Filed under Features.
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